


a real famous cat all dressed up in red

by orestesfasting, swordfishtrombones



Series: you and yours [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas, M/M, Mall Santa AU, Mall Santa Claus, Strangers to Lovers, that's a tag right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-24 20:27:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22023967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orestesfasting/pseuds/orestesfasting, https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordfishtrombones/pseuds/swordfishtrombones
Summary: “Why would they get a comedian to be Santa, anyway?” Eddie downed the rest of his hot chocolate and tossed the Styrofoam cup into a candy cane-striped garbage can, trying not to think about either sugar or climate change. “Since when is Santa supposed to be funny.”“I mean, he’s jolly, right?”“Maybe he’s just the type of asshole who laughs at his own jokes.”
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: you and yours [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2074590
Comments: 35
Kudos: 579





	a real famous cat all dressed up in red

**Author's Note:**

> yes it is december 29th, but we just learned that the 12 days of christmas start ON the 25th! so merry fifth day of christmas to those celebrating, hope you all get five golden rings!! to everyone else don't worry this is more like a wintertime story that happens to have a certain mall santa situation in it

Standing in the dingy mall restroom and staring at his reflection, covered in green felt and jingle bells, Eddie wondered if there had ever been a more sadistic example of a bait-and-switch.

When his boss had conspicuously re-forwarded him the annual Santaland benefit’s call for assistance, along with a pointed note _(“Notice you haven’t recorded any volunteer time this quarter!”),_ Eddie had imagined spending an afternoon addressing thank you notes to donors. He had worried, briefly, that he might be asked to do crowd control. He certainly had not imagined being handed a plastic bag labeled “Elf - Adult Male” and being told to go change.

Eddie shifted his weight from foot to foot, trying to find a position in which the seam of his red velvet breeches would sit comfortably. He only succeeded in getting his tights even more awkwardly twisted, and swore under his breath. The bells on the ends of his pointed shoes jingled softly.

“Fuck this,” Eddie said firmly to his reflection. He was an adult man with a job and self-respect. No one could force him to prance around in an elf costume for a bunch of screaming kids, and if that’s what it took to get the promotion, the promotion could go fuck itself. His mind made up, Eddie scrabbled at the plastic belt buckle cinching his green felt jacket together, trying to rip it free.

The sound of a flushing toilet made him jump. A tall and tired-looking man about Eddie’s age emerged from a stall. In the mirror, Eddie saw the man take in his costume with open amusement, eyebrows raised behind thick glasses. Eddie scowled and continued yanking ineffectively at his pleather belt.

The guy stepped up to the line of sinks and started washing his hands. “You sure that thing actually works, dude?” he said. 

Their eyes met in the mirror, and for one moment, Eddie had the weirdest feeling of deja vu—and then he blinked, and it passed, and he was looking at a scruffy stranger in a public bathroom.

“What do you know about it?” he asked defensively. “You ever worn one of these things?”

“No,” the man allowed, “but you know you’re zipped in, right?”

Eddie reached over his shoulder and touched the zipper at the back of his neck. “Oh. Right.” He glanced at the guy again, who, annoyingly, was clearly trying to stifle a laugh. “Look,” he said irritably, “I’m just volunteering, all right? It’s not like this shit’s part of my office dress code.”

“Right,” the guy said, nodding seriously. “Of course.”

Honestly, Eddie thought, this dude had no room to comment on anyone’s apparel when he himself was wearing a t-shirt depicting a rosy-cheeked goose in a chef’s hat under bright lettering that said _“MEE-MAW’S 80th BIRTHDAY BONANZA!”_

“I didn’t even know I’d be doing this,” Eddie muttered, turning back to the mirror. “I thought I’d—I dunno. Take pictures or something.”

“Got it,” the guy said, turning off the water and reaching for a paper towel. “And now you’re on elf duty, you wanna bail on a benefit for little kids with ebola. Et cetera.”

“I—” Eddie spluttered, “that’s not—”

“Hey, man, I’m just picking up what you’re laying down!” The guy tossed his paper towel in the trash and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back against the sink. “I mean, I get it. Fuck them kids, right?”

Eddie crossed his arms as well and stood up to his full height, though the guy was still half a head taller. “Hey, fuck you, dude. You don’t know me, all right?”

But the man was laughing. “Relax. I’m messing with you. Yanking your tinsel? Whatever. You want a hand with that?”

“I’m _good,_ thanks,” Eddie snapped with all the dignity he could muster. “I can handle a zipper.”

“Okay,” said the guy, palms up in surrender. “Live your life, man. I’m just sayin’… it’s only a couple hours. Might be easier to go with it than to start something with the supreme elf on high or whatever the fuck.”

“Pretty sure that’s just Santa.”

“Oh yeah? Good for him.”

The guy was grinning again, and Eddie caught a glimpse of his white but slightly crooked front teeth. He looked away quickly, back at his own ridiculous reflection. 

“A couple of hours, huh,” he huffed, tugging on his faux-fur collar.

“Just something to think about.” The guy combed a hand through his mess of dark hair. “Anyway, I gotta get to work. See you around.”

He sauntered out of the bathroom without a backward glance. Eddie stared at the bathroom door for a moment, chewing his lip, and then looked down at his costume.

“A couple of hours,” he said to himself, nodding in encouragement.

He exhaled heavily and reached back into the plastic costume bag for his pointed green hat. He jammed it onto his head, squared his shoulders, and marched out of the bathroom to meet his fate.

+

The scene outside was a nightmare of holiday cheer. Eddie had been in Santaland for about an hour (half of which had been dedicated to the mortifying experience of learning, along with a dozen other delighted-looking volunteers, something called “the North Pole boogie”), but the sight was still a shock. 

It was a bloodthirsty assault to the senses, stuffed with plastic evergreens, candy cane pillars, and huge sparkly snowflakes dangling every few feet. A toy train ran along on a suspended track overhead, and everywhere he turned there was a larger-than-life nutcracker or a grinning snowman that Eddie, for one, found profoundly disquieting. 

“This is fun, isn’t it?” Eddie’s coworker Bryan said delightedly, in the five minute break they had been allowed between elven dance lessons. Bryan was the only guy from Eddie’s department who’d been wrangled into this debacle along with him, but somehow he’d been spared the indignity of a costume. Instead, he was wearing a bright green t-shirt emblazoned with the Santaland logo and an ominous _“Questions? ASK ME!”_

“You wouldn’t be saying that if you had to lip sync ‘We Are Santa’s Elves’ in front of a horde of schoolchildren.” 

They were sitting on a bench whimsically painted to look covered in snow, beneath an old-timey signpost pointing, apparently, to the North Pole. In reality, the sign pointed to the far end of the room, where Santa’s as-yet unoccupied velvet armchair sat nestled between tinsel-covered trees. 

“Are you kidding? I’m kinda jealous!” Bryan enthused. Eddie took a swig of his shitty complimentary hot chocolate to stop himself from grimacing. “Plus, hey, did you hear who they got to be Santa this year?”

“I assume some random ex-convict.”

“No way, broski!” Bryan glanced furtively around their vicinity like he really thought someone would be trying to eavesdrop on this abysmal conversation. “I mean, they try to keep it on the D.L. because, like, the kids gotta think it’s really Santa, right? But it’s always some celebrity. Country musicians and soap actors, that kind of thing. But word on the street is, this year it’s Richie Tozier!”

Eddie frowned. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”

Bryan went bug-eyed. “Oh, come on, man! He’s a comedian! He’s based in the city—that bit about teaching your pervert dog how to swim? You’ve never seen that?”

In truth, Eddie thought the name had rung the faintest bell, but he couldn’t put a face to it. “I dunno, man, I’m not really into stand-up.”

“Oh, bro, you’re missing out!” Bryan said, shaking his head. Eddie doubted this very much. 

“Why would they get a comedian to be Santa, anyway?” Eddie downed the rest of his hot chocolate and tossed the Styrofoam cup into a candy cane-striped garbage can, trying not to think about either sugar or climate change. “Since when is Santa supposed to be funny.” 

“I mean, he’s jolly, right?”

“Maybe he’s just the type of asshole who laughs at his own jokes.”

“Maybe so,” Bryan conceded, squinting down the hallway. Then his eyes went round. “Look alive,” he whisper-shouted, and smacked Eddie’s arm with the back of his hand before springing to his feet.

“Ow.” Eddie rubbed his arm and followed Bryan’s gaze. A gaggle of crazed-looking store employees was hustling towards them, surrounding a tall but unusually thin Santa like members of the secret service. Eddie stayed sitting as they pushed past, Bryan standing at rigid attention.

The group made their way to the platform, one young woman still fussing with Santa’s beard. Eddie squinted at him—there was something familiar about his glasses, and the eyes behind them. Halfway up the stairs to Santa’s armchair, the man’s gaze swiveled across the room and landed on Eddie. In one movement, he grabbed the end of his beard and tugged it down, revealing a five o’clock shadow and a huge grin. 

Eddie froze.

“Hey!” the guy shouted, waving wildly at Eddie over the head of the young woman, who was now staring at the dangling beard in open alarm. “You stayed!”

Out of pure instinct, Eddie spun around and started fiddling with the ornaments on the tree behind him.

“Bro,” Bryan breathed. “You _know_ him?”

“No,” Eddie hissed. “I do not _know_ him, I just know he was acting like a real dickwad in the bathroom.”

“You talked to _Richie Tozier_ in a _mall bathroom?”_

“Apparently. He still looking over here?”

“He _absolutely_ is,” Bryan said gleefully. 

Eddie steeled himself and turned back around. The man—Richie Tozier—was in Santa’s chair now, the young woman working furiously to reapply the beard with a tube of what Eddie could only assume was glue. But Richie Tozier was still looking at him, and still grinning moronically.

“Few screws loose in that one,” Eddie muttered.

“He’s a comedian, it’s part of the gig,” Bryan said knowingly.

Eddie opened his mouth to ask if they were sure Richie Tozier was cleared to work with children, but he was cut off by the booming voice of the volunteer coordinator, shouting through a megaphone for the elves to get in position.

Wishing he were dead, Eddie got to his feet and trudged to the stairs leading up to Santa’s chair, avoiding Richie Tozier’s eyes. He and the other dozen elves stood on either side of the chair; the elf woman next to Eddie was wringing her hands in apparent nervousness, and Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Okay, quiet down, everyone!” the volunteer coordinator barked through a megaphone. “Listen up for your placements. Everyone from _you_ to _you,_ you’re on greeter duty. _You_ and _you,_ I need patrolling Santaland and answering questions. And _you_ two,” she finished, nodding to Eddie and the woman next to him, “you get to be personal assistants to Santa himself. Congratulations.”

Eddie felt his jaw fall open an inch. But the elves around him were dispersing quickly, and he pulled himself together enough to follow the nervous-looking woman, who was heading towards the Santa station.

“What are we supposed to do?” he whispered to her, and she shot him back a look of surprise.

“We’re the ones who take the kids up to Santa,” she said. “Ask them if they’ve been good, if they’re excited to see him. It was all in the training this morning.”

“Right,” said Eddie, who had spent the training fantasizing dully about going home and making soup.

At the bottom of the platform, the woman paused. “So, one of us should stay here, and entertain the kids while they wait....” She gave Eddie a dubious look.

“You do that,” he said at once. “I don’t care, I’ll just....”

She smiled gratefully. “You can help them get into Santa’s lap.”

“Great.” Eddie glanced up at the platform, where Richie Tozier was stroking his fluffy white beard theatrically. Eddie squared his shoulders and went to join him.

Maybe, he thought as he took his position to the left of Santa’s chair, it made sense that Richie Tozier had been offered the job. When he grinned up at Eddie, his dark eyes were kind of twinkling.

“Hey, dude,” he said. “Glad you stuck with the costume, it’s working for you.”

“That makes one of us,” Eddie said, ignoring the faint prickle of heat he felt in his cheeks. He wondered for a moment if he should be speaking respectfully, considering Richie Tozier was, apparently, a celebrity—and then, realizing he had no real inclination to do so, dismissed the thought. “Yours looks about four sizes too big.”

Richie Tozier glanced down at his Santa suit. “I did tell them I was gonna put on weight for the role. You know, like Christian Bale, get really method about it. I didn’t think they’d take me seriously.”

“You tried to play a game of chicken with Macy’s and lost? Hard life.”

“Yeah, yeah. And what are you so trim for?” Richie looked Eddie up and down. “You must be a standing desk guy, huh. Or do they have you doing triathlons _and_ elf duty?”

“Nothing wrong with staying active.”

“Hey, man, you don’t gotta justify yourself to me. I’ve just never met a treadmill I didn’t nearly puke on.”

Eddie’s lips twitched, despite the fact that the image was objectively not funny. He opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by the harshly amplified voice of the volunteer coordinator shouting through the megaphone. 

“Attention, everyone! We’ve got a line out the door, and these kids are _full_ of holiday cheer! Hope you’re all ready to make this the greatest Santaland yet. We’ll be opening the doors in ten! Nine! Eight!”

The double doors leading into Santaland burst open, and a flood of kids and parents started pouring in. There were shrieks of delight as the kids caught sight of Santa, who waved back at them with almost equal enthusiasm.

“Ugh, god, they’re cute,” Richie Tozier said quietly. “You have any kids?”

“Uh, no,” Eddie said, blinking in alarm at the idea. “I’m not much of a fan, actually.”

“No kidding?” Richie glanced at him, his white mustache twitching with a suppressed grin.

“Oh, fuck off,” Eddie whispered. Then, for some reason, he asked, “Do you? Have kids, I mean?”

“No,” Richie said, almost wistfully. “I love them, but I can’t be trusted around them, you know? Wouldn’t last five minutes without dropping them or teaching them how to say fuck.”

“I can see why they gave you the job.”

“Yeah, I left that little tidbit out of the interview.”

Eddie snorted, and then clapped a hand over his mouth, mortified. The movement caught the attention of the volunteer coordinator, who shot him a murderous look and drew her finger across her own throat threateningly.

“Holy shit,” Richie murmured. “Watch out, dude, she’s not playing around. She’s gonna be waiting for you in the parking lot after this.”

By then the kids and their parents were mostly seated, and Eddie groaned inwardly as the music began playing over the loudspeakers. Elves from all corners of Santaland climbed up to the platform, idiotically bouncing their way into position around Richie’s chair. Eddie pinched his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and, along with the other elves, started the dance.

_“Ho ho ho! Ho ho ho! We are Santa’s elves!”_

In sync with the costumed volunteers to either side of him, Eddie turned in a circle, waved his arms over his head, kicked out his feet to jingle the little bells at the end of his shoes. 

_“We’ve a toy for each girl and boy, oh, we are Santa’s elves!”_

The entire time, Richie Tozier waved his white gloved forefingers like a conductor, laughing merrily in a way that didn’t even seem to be acting.

When the music finally ended and the kids burst into shrieks and applause, Richie stood up, clapping his hands.

“Thank you, elves, thank you!” His Santa voice was significantly deeper than it had been when he was talking to Eddie. The change was so surreal, Eddie had to work to keep his face neutral. “What a jolly song and dance to welcome you all to Santaland. I’m so glad to see so many bright young faces smiling back at me!”

Eddie didn’t think this could get any cornier, but the kids were loving it. They broke out into another round of cheers as the elves on crowd control encouraged them into a long line. 

“Now, my elves will lead you up one by one to sit on my lap, and you can tell me what you’d like for Christmas. Sound good?”

The families applauded gleefully, and Eddie dug frantically through his consciousness for a perfectly neutral thought that he could use as an anchor for his sanity. Soup, he reminded himself. He was going to go home and have some lentil soup after this.

The first kids in line were two pink-faced sisters, shoving each other bodily in their eagerness to see Santa. The volunteer at the bottom of the platform handed them off to Eddie, and he took them by their sticky hands and lead them up the stairs.

“Ho ho ho!” Richie opened his arms to the girls. “Now, which of you girls would like to tell me what you want for Christmas?”

It was, Eddie thought, a pretty stupid question to ask two kids who were clearly about two seconds away from ripping each other’s limbs off if it meant getting dibs on Santa. Right on cue, the older girl wrenched free from Eddie’s grasp, elbowed her sister in the stomach, and clambered up the remaining stairs. The younger girl, still clinging to Eddie’s hand, collapsed to the ground and burst into tears.

“Jesus,” Eddie muttered, and then realized that was probably not what a Christmas elf was supposed to say. The older girl had made it to Richie’s lap, and Richie was bouncing her on his knee, looking on the scene with evident bewilderment.

“Well, now,” Richie said awkwardly, his artificially deep Santa voice just this side of strained. “Don’t you want to apologize to your sister?”

“No,” the girl said placidly. “I want Elsa’s Lego ice palace.”

Eddie was standing at an uncomfortable angle, dragged down by the dead weight of the little girl sobbing on the carpet. He squatted down next to her.

“Come on,” he said. “You’ve gotta get up now.”

“I _hate_ her!” the girl wailed.

“Okay,” Eddie said calmly. “Well, it’s _my_ arm you’re trying to rip off. I’m not the person you’re mad at, am I?”

The girl blinked up at him seriously, her tears slowing. Wiping her nose roughly with the back of her hand, she scrambled to her feet. Eddie led her the rest of the way up to Santa’s chair, mentally attempting to locate the closest bottle of Purell.

“Make room,” he said sternly to the girl already on Richie’s lap. “You guys are about two feet tall each, there’s room for you both.”

He picked the girl up at the waist and set her down on Richie’s unoccupied knee. Richie looked up at him, eyebrows raised. Eddie held his gaze, crossing his arms and stepping back.

“Tell him what you want for Christmas,” he said.

“iPad!” the younger girl squealed.

“iPad,” Richie said thoughtfully. “Interesting choice. What say you, uh… Rudy? Think the team can handle it?” 

Eddie pressed his lips together as Richie shot him an apologetic look. He supposed that’s what he got for failing to introduce himself. “We’ll see what we can do,” he said evenly.

“Well, there you have it,” Richie said loudly to the girls, who had started screeching at each other over who got the iPad. “All right, girls, Merry Christmas indeed!”

When the girls slid off his lap, Eddie didn’t miss the look of relief on Richie’s face.

Thankfully, most of the day went more smoothly. There were a few crying kids (including, memorably, three tiny triplets who started wailing in harmony the moment they caught sight of Richie’s bearded face), but Eddie found it wasn’t too hard to keep things moving. Most of the time, all you needed was to tell a kid they were fine, and they’d suddenly realize they really were fine. 

Eddie supposed the good thing about the overall chaos of the event was that it made the time pass quickly. He was almost surprised when the crowd control elves began shepherding kids out of the Santaland room, and it wasn’t much longer before the place was cleared of everyone but staff and volunteers.

Luckily there wasn’t much cleanup to be done, as the space wouldn’t be torn down until after the holidays, but Eddie and the other elves were still made to go around picking up the odd empty juice box and candy wrapper.

“Wow, what a day, huh?” Bryan said, approaching Eddie with an armful of tinsel.

“For sure,” Eddie said absently. He bent to pick up a pile of what looked like discarded paper snowflakes, and when he straightened back up, Bryan was looking wide-eyed at something over his shoulder.

“Eddie,” he hissed. “Dude, be cool. Richie Tozier is coming over here, _be cool!”_

“ _You_ be fuckin’ cool, Jesus.”

“Hey,” said a familiar voice behind him.

Eddie turned around. Richie’s Santa hat and costume were still on, but the beard was gone; Eddie could see a bit of dried glue clinging to the stubble on his upper lip.

“Hey,” Eddie said, coolly.

“Hi, I’m Bryan!” Bryan said loudly, holding out his hand. Richie took it awkwardly.

“Richie.” He nodded at Bryan and then looked back at Eddie. “Hey, listen,” he said. “I, uh, I wanted to send a picture of myself in costume to my mom.... I mean, I know there are like, professional photographers and shit here, but I think she’d like something a little less, like, staged, you know? Would you mind?”

“Oh,” Eddie said, hesitating. “Yeah, sure. You got a phone?”

“Nah, turns out Santa’s not allowed to have a cell phone on his person. He’s a retro kind of dude. You mind using yours and sending it to me?” 

“My phone’s got a really nice camera,” Bryan offered. “It’s a Google Pixel, the night sight mode is sick—”

“That’s okay,” Richie said, smiling as he turned back to Eddie. He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“Right,” Eddie said. “Yeah, okay, let’s, uh—let’s find you a nice backdrop.”

“Nice to meet you, Ryan,” Richie said pleasantly when Bryan took a step in their direction.

Eddie shot an apologetic look over his shoulder as he and Richie headed towards the Santa platform.

“Sorry for being a dick to your friend,” Richie said as they weaved through the busy throng of elves and green-shirted volunteers. Eddie waited for Richie to make an excuse, but he didn’t.

“He’s not, uh, my friend,” Eddie said awkwardly. 

Richie shot him a curious look. “Well, anyway. Appreciate it.” 

They had to stop in their tracks as a couple of burly men hauled an enormous live Christmas tree past them.

“You were good with the kids, you know,” Richie told him. “For someone who claims not to be a fan. Seems like they respond well to being spoken to like adults.”

Eddie glanced up to see Richie grinning at him, eyes crinkled behind his glasses. “Figures, I guess.” He shrugged. “You seemed a little… less than comfortable with them. For someone who claims to be a fan.”

“Dude, oh my god! Why was I so awkward with them? None of them liked me, it’s like they could sense my fear!”

“They’re like cats,” Eddie reasoned as they continued towards the Santa platform. “Cats don’t like eye contact with humans, so they end up gravitating towards people who don’t like them and avoiding the people who do.”

 _“It’s like raaaain on your wedding day!”_ Richie sang in an off-key falsetto. “I think here’s good, yeah?”

He stood on the steps leading up to Santa’s armchair, one foot several steps above the other, hands on his hips in a triumphant pose.

“Great stuff,” Eddie said, taking out his phone and opening the camera. Richie’s first pose wasn’t the only one he had up his sleeve—several of the pictures were blurry because he kept changing his mind and doing something else too quickly. 

“Hold still,” Eddie ordered him. “Just angle yourself, like....” He took a step towards Richie and put his hands on his shoulders, turning him gently. Richie let himself be moved, unexpectedly quiet.

“Good,” Eddie said. He stepped back, positioned the phone carefully, and snapped a picture. “That’s the one.”

“Do I get to see my options?”

“I said it’s the one.” 

“All right, have it your way, Annie Leibovitz.” Richie held out his hand. “Lemme put my number in your phone. So you can text me the winner.” 

“Sure,” Eddie said, somewhat warily, although it wasn’t like he had anything even remotely titillating on his phone. He placed it in Richie’s outstretched hand.

“What’s your name, by the way? Not Rudy, I’m guessing.”

“Definitely not Rudy.”

“Sorry, man, I panicked. I was thinking, like, North Pole, Rudolph, Rudy—”

“I get it,” Eddie said. “Though if that’s your improv game, I’m impressed you’ve gotten this far.” Richie clapped a hand to his chest like he’d been shot in the heart, and Eddie laughed. “I’m Eddie,” he said. “Eddie Kaspbrak.”

“Eddie Kaspbrak,” Richie repeated slowly, grinning around it. For a moment the grin flickered and his eyebrows contracted, but then he shook his head slightly, and the expression was gone. “I’m Richie,” he said, inclining his head awkwardly like he knew the introduction wasn’t necessary.

“I know,” Eddie told him. “Not because I, like, knew who you were before today, though.”

“No?” Richie huffed out a laugh. “That’s a relief, actually.” He grinned down at Eddie for a moment, and then he blinked, and seemed to remember what he’d been doing. “Well, nice to meet you, Eddie,” he said, looking back down at the phone and starting to type.

It did not, perhaps, feel entirely normal for a celebrity of any status to be giving their number out to random strangers. But nothing about Richie Tozier felt like what Eddie would expect from a celebrity. He seemed, mostly, like a guy. Like a guy Eddie would know, which was a weird thought in itself, because it wasn’t _true—_ he did not know anyone at all like Richie.

Eddie’s phone dinged as he rode the N train home, and he opened to a picture message from a contact named “Richie Claus.” When he clicked to download the image, he was rewarded with a selfie of Richie Tozier in a makeshift-looking dressing room, with one tiny jingle bell shoved up each nostril. Eddie tried not to yelp. 

_This is very disturbing_. _Please don’t inhale those and die._

_aw touched to hear u care_

_I just don’t think I could handle the second hand embarrassment._

_oh trust me itd be first hand. my obituary would be like: b-list comedian richie tozier dead at 37 in ill fated attempt to freak out local elf_

Eddie lowered his phone and scrubbed his hands over his face, hiding his smile from the rest of the train.

+

Eddie hadn’t come to New York to star on Broadway or to write for a big magazine or whatever it was that starry-eyed dropouts dreamed about. His life was pragmatic, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t good. It _was_ good. Even the worst days were fine. The best days were fine, too, come to think of it, but that was better than the disappointed hopes and heartbreak some people found in the city.

It had been years since Eddie had decided that the idea of “making it big” was just a way to keep romanticizing the city, even as it took your money and spat on your feet. He knew he was lucky—he made decent money, good enough to live with a level of comfort most New Yorkers never attained. But he wasn’t some big artist or rising celebrity. He wasn’t, in short, Richie Tozier.

Richie, it turned out, was an extremely bad, if enthusiastic, texter. Eddie supposed that’s what they’d been doing for over a week now: _texting_. They had been texting like it was an actual activity, consuming and continuous, not at all like the one-off back-and-forth Eddie had anticipated. Eddie wasn’t sure who could be blamed for how it had evolved. He’d read their chat three times over, trying and failing to pinpoint the moment it had morphed from light jokes between strangers into the never-ending Hydra of a conversation he now had before him. 

On the train, at his kitchen table in the morning, in the office bathroom—all of a sudden, Eddie’s every available moment was spent on his phone. Even in the most mundane parts of his day, Richie Tozier always had something to say.

 _what do u think this means,_ Richie would text, attaching a blurry image of a road sign featuring one large question mark.

And Eddie would offer three or four (or five or six) suggestions _(Caution, confusing road work ahead; Maybe it’s a metaphor; The person making the sign forgot what they were doing)._ If Richie responded within a minute, that meant it was a good day. 

That being said, Richie’s texting could be infuriating. Sometimes he’d leave Eddie hanging for hours, to the point where Eddie would begin over-analyzing his own last message, wondering if he’d said something stupid, or worse, something too boring to merit a response. But then—so far without fail—Richie would finally respond in one of two ways: by continuing where Eddie had left off, with no explanation whatsoever for his absence; or with something like _sorry dropped my phone off the fire escape and had to go dumpster diving for it lol._ Regardless of the response, Eddie found himself waiting for it eagerly until it came. He’d check his phone even when it didn’t ding, and would jump in surprise when it did—though half the time this resulted in disappointment when it turned out to be just a push notification from MyFitnessPal or the Business Insider app.

Anyway. Eddie wasn’t stupid. It only took a few days for him to pull himself out of his cozy state of denial and accept what his nervous system was telling him. He knew what this could become if he wasn’t careful, and _that_ was something he certainly didn’t need right now. He hadn’t dated anyone since breaking up with his ex Myra last year—after that shitshow, he’d all but sworn it off. Not that he could blame her, really, for turning the breakup into such a nightmare. He couldn’t imagine she enjoyed hearing her boyfriend of four years announce, in one frantic breath, that he was a) terrified of marriage, b) no longer investing in her scented candle pyramid scheme, and, on top of that, c) gay. 

It was all beside the point, anyway, at least where Richie was concerned. Eddie had spent more time than he’d care to admit watching YouTube videos of his stand-up, and was disappointed if unsurprised to learn that much of it was about, or at least conspicuously mentioned, his girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, and/or random (female) hookups.

“You think dating fans is gonna be fun, but no one tells you it’s actually _freaky,”_ Richie had begun in one bit from 2009, wolfish grin spreading across his sharp features as the audience hooted. “It’s like a whole new kink—I’m tryna be nice, right, letting her know I’ll keep our private life private, but you know there’s some kinda subliminal S&M shit going on when a girl is like, _‘Roast me, Daddy. Do it onstage, I want everyone to know!’_ What would _you_ do? I gotta oblige, right? So yeah, her farts are fuckin’ rank, man. That’s the joke.” At that point Eddie had calmly closed his laptop and left his apartment to take a walk around the block, if not the entirety of Astoria.

So he was trying to be chill about the whole thing. He was trying not to overthink the possible explanations for why a straight and at least somewhat famous comedian would want to spend hours of the day texting him, and he was trying not to catalogue all the many ways those texts might eventually be a detriment to his own mental and emotional state. Maybe, in this new stage of his life, Eddie could even learn to enjoy surreality. Take life as it came. Maybe that would be healthy. 

At least, that was what he told himself when Richie invited him to come see one of his shows _(i have 2 comp tix if u promise to laugh rly hard at the bad jokes the guy who usually does that is getting his appendix out)._

This time, Eddie was the one to leave the text unanswered for an eternity, though he imagined _Richie_ didn’t spend that time pacing around his apartment, questioning his own judgement and standards of self-respect. Finally, after Richie prompted him with a string of question marks, Eddie wrote back.

_I promise to laugh if it’s funny._

_that’s not what i asked for but ok_

+

It felt only fair to bring Bryan, being the one real Richie Tozier fan that Eddie knew. It occurred to him, as he waved Bryan over outside the Comedy Cellar, that Eddie really didn’t have any more claim on Richie than Bryan did. They had met on the same day, after all—and hell, Eddie hadn’t even known who Richie was. By the time they made it down the stairs to the underground club and settled at their cocktail table near the stage, Bryan had quoted three of Richie’s bits, and Eddie had gotten himself into a decidedly sour mood.

“Dude,” Eddie interrupted him halfway through explaining some punchline or other, “no offense, but I don’t think anyone in all of history has ever successfully re-told a joke. You might be wasting your breath.”

Bryan laughed good-naturedly. “Shit, man, you’re probably right.”

“I just don’t wanna, like, get sick of his stuff before the show starts, you know?” he added, a bit more amiably.

“Oh, as if, man. You’re gonna love this. This is where _good_ comedians come—like, Seinfeld and shit.”

Eddie, who detested Seinfeld, chose not to respond to this. Instead, he peered around them, watching the other tables steadily fill up. He wondered if any of these people had seen one of Richie’s shows before, and in the next moment thought, rather vindictively, that even if they had, surely none of them had spent hours texting with him about the mundanities of everyday life. Which was a petty-ass thought to have, Jesus fucking _Christ_ , and proved he needed to either drink away this mood or get his shit together. Preferably both.

He sighed in relief when the lights dimmed and the audience broke into applause. A wide spotlight faded in, illuminating the stool and microphone stand in the middle of the small stage, and the stretch of exposed brick wall behind it. The applause morphed quickly into hoots and cheers, and in the next moment a curtain on the side of the stage rustled, and Richie stepped onstage. Bryan put his fingers in his mouth and whistled enthusiastically, and Eddie had to suppress the urge to throw a handful of bar peanuts at him.

Richie looked—well, if Eddie was being honest, he looked good. Or at least he cleaned up well. He was wearing a blue suit jacket over black jeans and a white t-shirt, which bore no references to Mee-Maw’s or anyone else’s birthday bonanza. He’d shaved more recently than he had the day Eddie met him, though the five o’clock shadow was still there and his hair was still a mess of curls. The stage lights reflected off his glasses as he grinned and waved out at the audience.

The cheers showed no sign of dissipating as he approached the microphone; he motioned for them to quiet down, then seemed to change his mind and waved his arms upward, urging them on. The people around Eddie hooted and laughed, and Bryan punched his arm enthusiastically, raising his eyebrows and mouthing, _See?_

As the cheers finally quieted, Richie looked around the crowd, grinning at everyone, not saying anything. He grinned so widely and stared so long that the laughter started to pick up again, while Richie held eye contact with one member of the audience, then another, then another. Finally, he looked directly at Eddie. 

His grin didn’t budge, but Eddie’s stomach swooped.

“So,” Richie said, eyes still holding Eddie’s. “I’ve been pissing in a lot of public fountains lately.”

It was a weird set. Or maybe Eddie just didn’t know a lot about comedy. But Richie seemed to thrive in the most awkward beats, leaning into them, making fun of himself instead of the audience. At one point, he sank down onto his stomach and spent a full agonizing minute dragging himself across the floor _(“Can you imagine if a worm tried to do the worm? Fucked up we call it that when everyone knows they’re nature’s worst dancers”)_ ; at another, he hit himself repeatedly in the head with his own microphone, something about not understanding astrology and being followed by overenthusiastic shooting stars. 

Eddie only realized how much he was laughing when Bryan caught his eye and grinned approvingly. It wasn’t really that _funny,_ surely—but there was something striking about watching Richie get stupid with it, get physical and goofy and completely without pride. At least to Eddie, who had spent the past three years of his life going to the annual office karaoke party only to have one drink and firmly refuse to take the mic.

He had assumed there’d be some sort of finale, or something—like when the Fourth of July fireworks got bigger and faster, and you knew the end was coming soon to blow you out of the water, or at least try. But instead, forty-five minutes after taking the stage, Richie finished a bit about star-nosed moles and in the next breath was saying, “Thanks for coming out, everyone. ’Night!”

The crowd went wild as he waved and left the stage; half the room got to its feet, Bryan included. The lights came up and the applause died down, and no sooner had Bryan said _“Wow_ , right?” than Eddie felt someone tap his shoulder. He turned around in his seat to see a young woman wearing a headset leaning down towards him.

“Mr. Tozier would like to invite you two backstage.”

“Oh, uh—yeah, sure,” Eddie said, while Bryan grabbed his shoulder in a death grip of excitement.

The woman led them backstage through a dimly lit hallway, to a door marked _Makeup._ She knocked briskly and pushed the door open without waiting for a response. 

“Thanks, Hannah,” Eddie heard—and then the door swung open fully, and there was Richie Tozier, getting to his feet and smiling in a way that was just as enthusiastic as the grin he gave onstage, but different in a way Eddie couldn’t quite explain.

Immediately, Eddie felt a little bit warm. 

“Hey, man,” Richie said, stepping over and clapping him warmly on the shoulder. Eddie had worried it would be strange, seeing him after the two weeks of texting—and it was, kind of, but in a good way. Richie looked comfortable, happy to see him. He looked over Eddie’s shoulder, nodded at Bryan, and extended his hand for a shake. “Glad you guys could make it.”

“Dude,” Bryan all but breathed as he shook Richie’s hand, “a _pleasure,_ literally—I am such a fan.”

“He is,” Eddie confirmed, twisting his mouth in an attempt to telepathically communicate to Richie that he knew Bryan was embarrassing, and that Eddie himself would not be contributing to the embarrassment by adding praise.

But Richie just smiled. “Thanks, man. You never know how these small shows are gonna go. Glad to hear it was a good time.”

“Hell yeah,” Bryan said. “A lot better than spending the night at home watching _Cheers.”_

“Well, hey.” Richie shrugged, looking from Bryan back to Eddie. “If that’s all you’ve got planned tonight—I was maybe gonna meet some people at Julius’. You’re welcome to come along if you’re up for it.”

“Sure!” Bryan said. “Julius—don’t know it.” 

“No?” Richie said mildly. “It’s one of the gay bars up on West 10th, I thought you two might’ve....”

For a second, the room froze. Eddie blinked. 

“Oh!” said Bryan. He laughed nervously, then paused again—Eddie could see the calculation happening on his face, and hoped the same thing wasn’t occurring quite so transparently on his own. “Uh, not really, my. Scene.”

Richie raised his eyebrows, one corner of his mouth quirked up. “Shit, dude, sorry. I figured you guys were, like....”

Eddie’s brain, which had stalled out a few sentences back, suddenly came back online. He gave a short bark of laughter, then clamped his hand over his mouth. 

“Sorry,” he said, lowering his hand. “No. We’re not, uh… no.”

“My bad.” Richie was still smiling, but he looked inquisitive, curious. “I’m not like, the world’s greatest at reading things.”

He said it to Eddie, low and almost apologetic, and Eddie frowned. 

There were moments when Eddie got the feeling that, at some point in the past few years, time had started moving more quickly, and it wasn’t waiting for him to tag along. Or maybe the world had been moving along all this time, and Eddie was the problem—maybe he had only recently wandered outside, squinting and blinking and trying to understand what was going on. He didn’t like the idea that Richie might be able to see this; might be able to take one look at Eddie and see him for the person he was afraid of being, someone too bewildered to go out and dance on a Thursday night. Sure, he hadn’t been hitting the clubs since he and Myra broke up (not that he had been before, either), but he _could_ have been, if he'd wanted to. He still could. 

“I’ll come,” he said abruptly. “If you’re still going. I’m in.”

+

They didn’t, in the end, make it to Julius’.

“Didn’t you have friends you were gonna meet?” Eddie asked as he and Richie walked up MacDougal Street, shoulders hunched against the chill.

“Eh…” Richie hedged. “To be honest, man, they’re not really my friends. Buddy of mine invited me to go out for _his_ friend’s birthday, which is like, one too many degrees of separation for me to care about going or not going. Kinda just didn’t feel like it.”

Eddie thought about saying something like, well it’s too bad we let Bryan dip, in that case. Bryan had awkwardly excused himself as soon as they’d all made it out of the Comedy Cellar, something about an early meeting the next day, but Eddie knew he was really just wigged out about going to a gay bar after being confused for Eddie’s lover by a famous comedian. Not that Bryan wasn’t a good guy about that sort of thing, as far as Eddie could tell; it’s just that he was also, apparently, the kind of guy who spent his evenings watching _Cheers_ with the wife. Anyway, the truth was that Eddie didn’t really think it was too bad that he’d left, so he didn’t bother saying so.

Of course, what Bryan’s absence meant, in an immediate sense, was that Eddie was now alone with Richie Tozier, the rest of the night stretching out dauntingly before them. Given the particulars of the situation, Eddie thought he was keeping it together remarkably well. It was comfortable, almost, just falling into step with him as they bypassed Washington Square Park, listening to him recount his past experiences with heckling and (though Eddie had trouble believing it) stage fright. 

“I’m serious, bro,” Richie said, thrusting his shitty beer can into the air for emphasis, once they finally settled in a bar. “When I was first starting out, like, it wasn’t uncommon for me to puke backstage before a set.” They had wound up at a divey little place with framed pictures of baseball players on the wall. Soft rock Christmas carols hummed over the speakers, punctuated by the gentle _clack_ of pool balls in the next room. 

They had only found one open seat at the bar when they walked in, but Richie had insisted he was always too keyed-up after a show to sit down anyway. He was standing in front of Eddie while Eddie sat backwards on the bar stool, holding his drink with both hands and trying not to grin like a moron. The place had cleared a little by now, and the seat next to Eddie was finally empty, but Richie did seem happy on his feet, laughing and talking with his hands.

“The key is not to _think_ about it,” he said, tapping his forehead with his index finger. “It’s like… it’s like going to the gym. I can do it if I just _go._ But if I start _thinking_ about it, no way is it happening.”

Eddie snorted into his Manhattan. It had been a while since he’d had more than two drinks in a night, and he was feeling flushed in his face and neck, comfortable and happy and not sure if it was the booze or something else. “Okay, hold on,” he said, miming with his free hand like he was taking notes. “The pros say, quit thinking.”

“What’d it ever do for the species? We were much happier when we were rolling around in the mud.”

“Pros… say… lie down… eat dirt.” Eddie put down his invisible pen with a flourish. “Can’t wait to sell the transcript of this whole conversation to a trashy magazine.”

“It’s so cute you don’t even know what the trashy magazines are called,” Richie said in a voice Eddie tried not to identify as fond. “Hey, though. You still haven’t told me if you liked the set.”

“Didn’t get enough pats on the head from Bryan?”

Richie drained his beer and leaned forward, reaching around Eddie to set the empty can on the bar. Their forearms brushed against each other, and Eddie could feel faint body heat under Richie’s sleeve. “I want a pat on the head from _you,”_ Richie said.

“I’m probably not the person to ask.”

“You are too. I wanna know what you think. It’s new stuff, still getting workshopped. So all the more reason to tell me if it’s unfunny horseshit.”

“You _saw_ me laughing.”

“Yeah, but.” Richie’s eyes were bright. “I have this feeling, like, I bet it’d be fun to hear you say it.”

Eddie groaned. “You’re an only child, aren’t you?”

Richie threw back his head to laugh. “My god,” he said. “That’s worse than someone guessing your sign.”

“Takes one to know one,” Eddie conceded. “Don’t tell me you’re a Gemini, too.”

Richie’s eyes widened. “Uh, _yeah_ , dude. June first. You?”

“May 31st.”

“No! Not ’76?”

“’76.”

“You’re a day older than me!” Richie crowed. “Fuck!”

“If you add this to your set I will kill you.”

Richie just beamed at him. A piece of hair was curled delicately around his ear, and Eddie wondered what it might feel like to touch. “Speaking of which—” Eddie said, “I’m back to giving you feedback now because this horoscope shit is too embarrassing—it was also very messy and weird. And not what I was expecting. From googling you.”

“Ah.” Richie ran a hand along his jaw, his face somewhere between a grin and a grimace. “Makes sense, I guess.” His mouth twisted, and then he looked at Eddie, eyes narrowed. “Hold that thought.” He leaned forward, resting one elbow on the bar while his other hand alighted on Eddie’s shoulder. He ordered another drink from the bartender, then glanced over at Eddie with raised eyebrows, but Eddie just shook his head, raising his still half-full Manhattan. He tried to ignore the small pang of disappointment when Richie leaned back out of his space, hand sliding off his shoulder.

“If I let you in on a little secret, will you promise not to tell?” Richie’s voice was low and the corners of his mouth were slightly turned up.

“Fuck no,” said Eddie, but he was leaning in too. “I don’t know what kind of perverted shit you want me to cover for.”

Richie laughed. “Well, I trust you anyway.”

“Don’t. I was an RA in college. The impulse to turn you in might be too strong for me.”

“I bet you were a cool RA, though. Letting the kids keep their bongs.”

“It was mostly for the free room,” Eddie allowed. He rubbed at his nose. “I didn’t have… it took me a long time to afford my own place. But, uh. I needed to—I didn’t have the best relationship with my mom. So. It was good for me.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Richie said, sounding like he meant it. 

“Yeah, well. Look at me now.”

He’d meant it sarcastically, but Richie nodded. “Yeah, dude. Now you look like the type of, like, grossly successful Wall Street guy who wears a pinky ring to keep his edge.”

“Shut the fuck up, I do not,” Eddie said, punching Richie’s arm lightly. “Anyway. Tell me your big secret.”

“Right.” Richie coughed. “Ha. Well. For most of my career I didn’t, uh. I wasn’t the one writing most of the jokes. I had this agent, when I was first starting out—she’d say my delivery was great, but my subject matter was, like. How’d she put it? Dogshit. So we, you know, we worked something out. I mean, a lot of comics do it, you might be surprised,” he added, not quite defensively, but almost. “And honestly, I was pretty happy with it that way. You know, the thing now is everyone wants comics to be _personal,_ but at the time, I was like—” He laughed humorlessly. “I was like, yeah, no thanks. So it kinda just felt like someone was giving me an out. Thanks, man,” he said to the bartender, leaning past Eddie again to grab his whiskey ginger. 

“So what you’re telling me,” Eddie said slowly, watching Richie take a long sip, “is that the stuff I saw on YouTube was the work of a hack.” He would not bring up _Roast me, Daddy._ He would not.

“Basically!” Richie said, sloshing his drink a bit as he gesticulated. “Basically, yes. I’m not proud to admit it, but there it is. But anyway, I fired that agent like six months ago. Big deal for me! And I’ve been working on my own stuff since then, so. That was what you saw tonight.” He eyed Eddie a bit warily over the rim of his glass.

Eddie swirled his drink slowly, in a way he realized was purely theatrical. Where had he picked that up? During some long, stiff dinner party, probably, while he was trying to copy the movements of people who actually wanted to be there. “Well, like I said. It was weird and messy, and I liked it. I definitely liked it a lot better than some of the older stuff I saw. And, I mean, I don’t know shit. But that’s probably not a bad place to be, right? The audience was into it. Just, you know. Tighten up the part with the worm, please.” 

Richie grinned at him and looked away, like he didn’t want to show how pleased he was, and Eddie felt a wave of relief wash over him. Myra had never really wanted criticism, just a safe place to vent, and they had never quite managed to find that rhythm; when she would ask for his thoughts on her work, it always led to a fight, no matter what, ending with both of them hurt and frustrated. Eddie tapped his finger against his glass nervously.

“Why me?” he asked, after a moment’s hesitation.

Richie blinked, opened his mouth a little. Hastily, Eddie clarified, “Why’d you want a pat on the head from me?”

Richie grinned down into his glass before taking a sip. The stool on Eddie’s left was still empty, and Richie finally swung a long leg over it and sat down. Eddie’s leg twitched when Richie’s knee brushed his, but then he relaxed, and their knees stayed pressed together, just slightly.

“I guess,” Richie said slowly, running his finger along the rim of his glass, “I guess I just knew, like… that you wouldn’t just tell me what I wanted to hear?” He caught Eddie’s eye and grinned crookedly before glancing away again. “I knew, like, whether you thought it was good or bad, your opinion would mean more. I don’t know why.” This time he glanced in Eddie’s direction, though not quite at him. “Kinda felt like I was up there telling jokes just to you, in a way. And if you laughed, I was doing good. I know that sounds corny as hell, but....” Eddie watched Richie’s throat as he took another sip, eyes lingering on his Adam’s apple. 

Over the speakers, Darlene Love was crooning, begging her baby to come home. _“’Cause I remember when you were here—and all the fun we had last year—”_ A pleasurable shiver ran up the back of Eddie’s neck.

“Fuck, this song rocks,” Richie said. “They should do Christmas karaoke, shouldn’t they? That’d clean up.”

“Hey,” Eddie said, swallowing tightly. “What makes you think all that? You don’t—I mean, you don’t even really know me.” He’d meant it as a statement, but his voice went up at the end, unintentionally turning it into another question. 

“Hm,” Richie said, not looking at him. He rested both elbows on the bar, licked his lips. “Okay, see. You know what ylang-ylang smells like?”

“Excuse me?”

“Ylang-ylang? Like, a plant? I used to know a woman who wore it, and god, it smelled so good, I couldn’t figure out why I liked it so much.”

“Is this a bit? Can you answer questions in a straight line?”

“No. Anyway, I liked it so much. And then finally I visited my folks, hadn’t seen them in over a year, and fuck, it was my mom’s perfume. Like, duh. It was that simple.”

“Okay,” said Eddie. “So?”

Richie turned back to him, eyes black in the dim light. “So, I don’t know. I know I don’t know you. But also. It kinda feels like I do.”

Eddie paused, taking a steadying breath. “Uh, I don’t think.... Does that… analogy work?” 

“Maybe not. I was dropped down the cellar stairs a few times as a kid. You have a right to know.”

Eddie laughed softly. He thought, for one moment, of Richie taking the stage before he had a chance to think about it; about the bravery involved with leaping before you looked, just trusting that you’d land. He thought about it for one beat, then swallowed the thought, and said, “I feel that, too.”

Richie’s eyes did a quick search of his face before dropping back to the bar. The Darlene Love song faded out, transitioning into a smooth pop cover of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” Someone in the pool room cheered. 

Richie took a final drink from his glass and put it down on the bar. “I have to go home, Eddie,” he said. 

“Oh.”

“Not to be presumptuous, but. Are you coming with me?” 

“Oh,” Eddie said again. And then, “Yes.”

+

They took a cab to Richie’s place in the East Village. The ride was utterly silent but for the driver’s podcast, a few guys bantering in a language Eddie didn’t know. He kept his eyes fixed out the window as they sped along East 8th, but when he chanced a look over at Richie, it was to find his eyes on him. 

The apartment was on the third floor of a brick walk-up near Tompkins Square Park. As he followed Richie up the stairs, Eddie tried to seriously assess his own level of drunkenness and found that he couldn’t reliably do so. Never in his life had he felt such an acute combination of delirium and clearheadedness, all of it bound together by the jumble of nerves coiled in his stomach, weighing it down. 

They didn’t speak as Richie fumbled with his keys, and they didn’t touch as he led Eddie inside, flipping on a floor lamp that cast the apartment in soft warm light.

Richie’s place was smaller than Eddie would have thought, but clearly warm and lived in. It opened up on a living room with two squishy looking loveseats, a bookshelf, and a coffee table strewn haphazardly with papers and an open laptop. Eddie noticed a large pillow lying flat on the hardwood floor by the coffee table, squashed into submission as if someone had been using it as a makeshift seat. Something about the sight hit him as strangely touching. 

“Nice place,” he said, to have something to say. Framed movie posters hung on the wall, mostly titles he’d never heard of. Glancing around, something on the bookshelf caught his eye: a framed picture of what looked like a twenty-something-year-old Richie in front of a brick wall, eyes squeezed shut and mouth open, his arms flung around two laughing young women with bright eyes and wild hair. 

Eddie stepped to the shelf and picked up the picture. It really wasn’t a very good photo of Richie at all, somehow caught both mid-sentence _and_ blinking, wearing a loudly patterned shirt with every button off by one. In another way, it was perfect. 

“Friends?” Eddie asked, his back still to Richie.

“Yeah.” Richie was closer than he had thought, and Eddie shivered slightly. “Molly and Raina. Back when we were all trying to, you know, be comedians. They were both way funnier than me.”

“Were?”

“Yeah, I mean, I’m sure they still are. But stuff changed, you know. The way it does.”

Eddie nodded. He brought his hand up to the picture and touched the younger Richie’s face with a fingertip, smiling crookedly. “Jesus,” he said quietly. 

He felt Richie’s hand, then, featherlight on the small of his back, echoing his own touch. Eddie took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and placed the picture back on the shelf. Then he leaned into the touch. Richie’s arm snaked around him, and Eddie turned and buried his face in Richie’s neck. 

“Hey.” Richie’s surprised huff of laughter was warm in Eddie’s ear. Eddie just wrapped his arms around Richie’s waist and breathed him in.

“Hi.”

Richie’s lips were soft against his temple. “Have you, um. You’ve done this before, right?”

Eddie nodded. “Been a long time, though. Years.”

“Wow,” Richie said, and Eddie could feel his grin. “Big ego moment for me, being the one to get you back in the game.” Eddie stomped on his toe. “Seriously though,” Richie said through laughter, pulling back a little to look down at him. “We don’t—obviously we don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna—I mean, even just this is fine. I’m game for whatever.”

The hand that wasn’t holding him close was on Eddie’s face, thumb brushing over his cheekbone.

“Richie,” Eddie said. “Can you just kiss me?” 

“I,” said Richie. “Yeah.” 

He let go of Eddie’s waist, his hand coming to rest on the back of his neck. Still cupping Eddie’s face in his other hand, Richie leaned in, his mouth soft and just barely open, and closed it gently against the corner of Eddie’s own. He landed another kiss on his cheek, another on his eyebrow. Then Eddie groaned, and Richie laughed, and kissed him for real.

Eddie exhaled heavily through his nose and stepped backwards, his hands in Richie’s shirt to drag him along. They kissed hard against the wall, Eddie’s brain blanking out with embarrassing alacrity when Richie pulled him closer by the chin. Eddie put his hand to Richie’s jaw, sliding it up into his hair, carding his fingers through it over and over.

Had it been that long? Maybe it had just never been like this before. Eddie felt warm and cocooned, his heart pushing out against his chest, like it wanted to be touched in the same way. Maybe that was just the feeling of being held.

In Richie’s bedroom, naked from the waist up, Eddie allowed himself to be pushed onto his back. Richie settled between his legs, heavy body pinning Eddie down. His mouth was hot on Eddie’s neck as they moved against each other.

“Tell me what you want,” Richie murmured, voice rough in Eddie’s ear. “Anything, fuck, anything you want.”

Eddie groaned, wrapping his legs around Richie’s waist, feeling Richie’s cock hard against his own through their jeans. “I don’t know,” he said, breathless. “I don’t know.”

Richie’s fingers were on his throat, the skin so sensitive that Eddie laid his head back, exposing more, wanting Richie to know. He closed his eyes, breathing hard, and when Richie’s fingers brushed his lips he sucked one of them desperately into his mouth.

“God,” Richie breathed. He’d left his glasses on, and his eyes were dark and heavy-lidded behind them. He sucked in a sharp breath as Eddie curled his tongue around his finger. “Eddie—can I suck you off? Please.”

“Yeah, fuck—”

Richie’s finger left a trail of spit down Eddie’s chin as he slipped it out of his mouth. He wriggled down the bed, Eddie dragging his fingernails along his back until they ended up tangled in Richie’s hair.

Richie pressed a kiss to his belly before fumbling with his belt buckle. Eddie lifted his hips to help Richie pull his jeans and underwear off. He hardly had time to feel vulnerable about his nakedness before Richie made a low sound in his throat, and then he was sliding his mouth around him.

 _“Fuck,”_ Eddie gasped, writhing, and clapped a hand over his mouth.

Richie pulled off slowly, reaching up to grasp Eddie’s forearm and drag his hand away from his face. “I wanna hear you,” he said, before lowering his head again.

Eddie fisted his hands in Richie’s hair and let him hear.

+

Eddie woke up under a tangled navy blue sheet, and, more pressingly, under Richie’s heavy arm. He worked his jaw gingerly for a moment, then caught a glance at the light pouring in through the slats in the venetian blinds, and started.

He had a meeting at eleven—too late now to go home and shower, he’d have to make do. The knowledge of what had happened the night before was pushing against Eddie’s throat, begging for attention, but it would have to wait. Carefully, he rolled out from under Richie’s arm and eased himself out of bed, gathering up his pants and socks.

In a drawer in the bathroom he found a spare toothbrush and a washcloth, and scrubbed at himself frantically for a moment until he was satisfied that he looked tired and disheveled, but at least not—well. At least not recently fucked.

He sidestepped Richie’s t-shirt on the living room floor and found his own discarded button-down on the coffee table, silently thanking God for casual Fridays. As he put on his watch, he caught sight of the framed picture on the bookshelf, and his stomach turned over.

How much had he revealed last night? He remembered wrapping his arms around Richie’s neck and arching his back like he wanted every part of himself in contact with every part of Richie. Had he moaned his name? Had he said please? Eddie flushed and pushed the thought away. 

He realized his phone was still on Richie’s bedside table, and immediately followed up with the secondary realization that he was nervous to reenter the room. At the bedroom doorway, Eddie hesitated; but Richie showed no signs of waking, so finally he crossed the room quietly and picked up his phone. 

Richie had rolled onto his stomach, his bare left arm thrown across the bed. The sight of his broad hand on the pillow where Eddie’s head had been made Eddie’s mouth feel dry. He shook his head gently and took a step backward—but Richie, perhaps sensing the movement, stirred.

He turned his head groggily against the pillow, squinting up at Eddie. He grinned at him sleepily.

“Hey,” he said, voice croaky with sleep. “What’re you doing?”

Eddie’s stomach somersaulted again. “Going to work,” he said.

“Whaaat?” Richie rolled onto his side, reaching his arm up toward Eddie as if to pull him back down. “Really?”

“Yeah, I mean. It's Friday.”

Richie frowned at him. Eddie was pretty sure it was just for effect, but he still didn’t like it. “Blow it off,” Richie said.

Eddie’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t _blow it off._ You know about meetings? I have those.”

“I know about meetings,” Richie said petulantly. “Just didn’t know the world would end if you missed one. It’s Christmas.”

“It’s December twentieth.”

“Don’t you get, like, sick days?”

Eddie shut his mouth, jaw clicking uncomfortably. “Let me be more clear. I _can’t_ blow it off, and I don’t _want_ to blow it off. I have a life, bro.”

“Some life,” Richie muttered.

Eddie’s eyebrows shot up. “Okay,” he said. “Fuck you very much.”

“Hey, Eds, come on,” Richie said, like he was dealing with someone unreasonable.

Eddie’s heart stuttered almost painfully at the nickname, and he clenched his fists in response. “Look, I know my life isn’t as, as shiny and exciting as yours, but some of us need to go out and _earn_ a living, okay?”

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean,” Richie said darkly, sitting up and reaching for his glasses on the bedside table. The blanket over him slipped down into his lap, and Eddie’s eyes dropped to the dark hair on his chest before darting away.

“It means I have responsibilities. And I can’t just lie in bed all day.”

“Then don’t.”

“Fine.”

He waited for a moment, expecting Richie to fire back, but he didn’t. He just sat on the bed and looked at him.

Eddie turned around and left, closing the bedroom door firmly behind him.

+

The anger mostly dissipated by lunchtime, leaving behind a muddy jumble of sadness, embarrassment, and confusion. By the time he left the office it had all coalesced into a great stormcloud of self-loathing that followed him home and stayed hanging over his head all weekend.

Richie didn’t text him—of course he didn’t, after Eddie basically told him to go fuck himself and stormed out. Eddie didn’t text either. He was trying hard not to think about the whole thing: when he thought about the sex, he cringed remembering how he left; and when he thought about the way he’d left, he cringed remembering the sex. Not thinking about it sounded like a good solution, except that trying to restrict his own thoughts made them feel that much more illicit, and, therefore, that much more shameful.

There was no reason to feel like shit, he tried to tell himself, pushing his cart down the aisle at Stop & Shop on Sunday, preparing for the blizzard that was supposed to be rolling in. He and Richie swam in crazily different circles. Eddie was here with all the other adults, buying gallons of water and batteries and two bottles of red wine, the emergency supplies. Richie was probably lying around on his loveseat, watching TV and waiting for his assistant or whoever to drop off expensive takeout sushi, which would doubtless be gobbled down without so much as an appreciative glance, and which would then give him worms. Eddie shoved his shopping cart against its sticky wheel vindictively. 

Of course it was never gonna be anything more than a one night stand, and people didn’t need to feel beholden to their one night stands. There must be plenty of people who did that all the time—met someone, had some fun talking, spent a while gauging interest, and, when the moment presented itself, hooked up. Eddie had just made it easy for Richie by being a sucker. Which was fine. It was just that, if hookups left you feeling lonelier than you felt before, he really didn’t see the point. 

Neither of them had done anything wrong, because there were no stakes, and it didn’t matter. That line of thought should’ve helped, too, but instead it led to a sickening vision of Richie in some other bar, saying to some other man, _“Yeah, you should’ve seen the guy I took home last week. Told me he hadn’t slept with a dude in years. He kept rubbing up on me like a starving cat, and then freaked out in the morning. I almost felt sorry for him.”_

Which was an extremely dreary thing to imagine, after confessing whatever the fuck Eddie had confessed. That he felt like he _knew_ Richie. That he liked his weird stand-up. In retrospect, those felt equally damning. 

+

For four days, Eddie placated himself with the thought that he wasn’t _alone_ in New York, not really. He had been planning to drive to Long Island on the 24th to spend Christmas with his aunt Sally. They’d reconnected after his mom died, and when she’d heard last year that he and Myra had called it quits, she’d invited him down for the holidays and told him to make it a tradition _(“And when you find another special someone, you can bring her, too!”)._ But the weather channel kept at it with the snowstorm warnings, and sure enough, Eddie woke up the morning of Christmas Eve to what most New Yorkers would brazenly classify as a blizzard.

By lunchtime, soon after getting off the phone with aunt Sally, Eddie was sitting in sweatpants at his kitchen table, eating reheated gyoza and watching the snow pelt down outside his window. _It’s A Wonderful Life_ played on his tiny TV in the background, the best gesture toward the season he’d managed to come up with. Maybe not the greatest holiday, but he’d had worse. At least he didn’t have to make small talk or pretend to be having a good time. 

An hour later he had caved and broken into a bottle of red wine. He was lying on the sofa, sipping from his stemless glass and placidly allowing _It’s a Wonderful Life_ to fade into _A Christmas Story,_ when he heard his phone ding. He frowned; lately the only texts he’d been getting were automated pickup reminders from the pharmacy, and he’d been sure to get all his refills before the storm hit. 

He reached for his phone, sliding it across the coffee table towards him, and glanced at the lock screen.

“Shit!”

With a clatter, he dropped the phone to the hardwood floor and scrambled to pick it up again. The text message was from Richie Claus: _remind me which street in astoria u live on._

Eddie stared at the screen. Then he put the phone face-down on his stomach and took a slow swallow from his wine glass. He kept sipping until the glass was empty, at which point he set it on the floor, picked the phone up again, and responded, before he could stop himself: _I never told you that._

The response came almost immediately.

 _oops  
_ _ok how’s this which street in astoria do u live on_

_Who wants to know?_

_santa so he can deliver ur coal tonight_

Eddie stood up and walked quickly to the kitchen. He opened the fridge, looked inside, and closed it again. Then he went back to the couch, poured himself another glass of wine, and opened his phone. 

_Tell him I live on 30th street near the corner of 30th ave._

_whoa confusing  
ah shit _

After a few minutes had passed without a follow-up, Eddie made himself set his phone down again. He went to the bathroom, got out some Clorox wipes, and started scrubbing down the perfectly clean sink. Then he went back to the living room and checked his phone. Nothing.

Ten minutes later he had watered every plant in the apartment, had a few more nervous sips of wine, taken an antacid just in case, and had pulled half the contents of his kitchen cupboards off their shelves to double-check the expiration dates. He was frowning at a bag of dried apricots when his phone finally dinged again.

Eddie was across the apartment instantly, grappling for his phone. 

_ok which number pls_

_…  
_ _18_

_ok which floor pls_

_Richie what are you doing._

_santa needs to know which window to climb thru since u don’t have a fireplace i assume_

_Oh my god  
_ _2nd_

_thank god_   
_left or right side of building_   
_nvm just gonna go for it_

A moment later, Eddie heard a dull thunk on the living room window. Glancing over at it, he saw a splatter of snow sliding off the pane.

“Jesus,” he said out loud, going over to pry the window open. 

He was met with a blast of cold air and sideways-falling snow—and the sight of Richie fucking Tozier, standing on the sidewalk in the middle of the teeming snow, wearing a full green and gold Party City elf costume, a portable speaker hoisted above his head. When he caught sight of Eddie, Richie let out a whoop and pressed a button. The speaker crackled to life, cutting through the whistle of wind and snow.

_“Ho ho ho! Ho ho ho! We are Santa’s elves!”_

Eddie stared. Across the street another window opened, and an elderly man pulled his shutters aside and stared, too.

On the sidewalk, half obscured by snow, Richie was doing something that could maybe be described as a dance—kicking his legs and shaking his feet, turning in a circle, and making one aborted attempt at a rhythmic squat.

 _“We work hard all day!”_ the speaker shrieked. _“But our work is play!”_

Richie kicked out one leg, slid on a patch of ice, and fell on his ass.

“Fuck!” Eddie pulled his head out of the window and ran for the door.

At the bottom of his apartment building’s staircase, Eddie heaved open the front door and swore again, the cold hitting him like a thousand tiny daggers.

Richie was wincing but back on his feet, knocking snow off his green polyester pants with his bare hands.

“What is wrong with you?” Eddie half-shouted at him, wrapping his arms around himself and squinting through the snow. “Where are your _gloves?_ Where is your _coat?”_

Richie grinned at him sheepishly. “Hi.”

The portable speaker, on the ground now, continued to blast: _“Santa knows who’s good! Do the things you should!”_ Richie bent down gingerly to pick it up and switch it off.

“Get in here,” Eddie ordered. “It’s a goddamn blizzard, Richie.”

He marched Richie up the stairs and into his apartment, the door still wide open. 

“Shit,” he said, looking at the open window, where a sizable pile of snow had blown onto the floor and was being quickly melted by the radiator. On the TV, Ralphie Parker was sitting on Santa’s lap, stupidly nodding yes to a football. Eddie muted the TV, then crossed the room and forced the window shut, hyper-aware of Richie behind him, waiting for him to turn around.

Finally, he did. Richie was pink-faced and windswept, wearing a grim, tight-lipped smile. 

“Hi,” Richie said, and then winced. “I already said that.”

“How embarrassing for you.”

Richie laughed and turned around slowly, his arms in the air. “You like it? I thought you were into this look.”

“Oh, yeah.” Eddie walked to the couch and sank down onto it, looking up at Richie as coolly as he could. “The only reason I’ve ever worn an elf costume. My fucking passion for fashion.”

Richie lowered his arms, giving Eddie a funny kind of smile. “I _am_ embarrassed,” he said. “Not about this, but.”

Eddie swallowed. “You should be embarrassed about this,” he managed. “You look very stupid.”

“I know.” Richie shrugged. “But. Like I said.” 

Eddie raised an eyebrow at him, and Richie went on.

“Look, I know you have Christmas plans—you said something about heading out tonight—so I just wanted to… I don’t know, man. I wanted to apologize. I was being a dick before.”

“Yeah,” said Eddie. “You were.” But immediately, a part of him was in revolt. He was experiencing the weirdest sensation, like phantom arms were shooting out of his shoulders, trying to reach for Richie whether the rest of him liked it or not.

It would feel very good to forgive him. 

“What are you doing here?” he said instead.

“Trying to apologize.”

“I know, but—” Eddie gestured at him broadly. “What are you _doing_ here?”

Richie’s mouth twisted. “Man—I just don’t wanna fuck around or play stupid games.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Costume notwithstanding. Can I sit down?”

Automatically, Eddie nodded, and then realized it meant Richie was going to sit next to him. Sure enough, Richie flopped down on the far side of the couch, one leg bent on the cushion and the other foot on the floor.

“You could like, give me a word of encouragement any time,” he said.

“I want to hear what you’re gonna say,” said Eddie.

Richie flung his head back dramatically. “Fine,” he said, and picked it back up. “Okay, listen. I think this is very simple. _Not_ that you don’t have reason to be annoyed,” he added hastily. “But I know how I feel, right? I’m not on the fence about anything. So if it’s the same for you, maybe we can just be honest with each other, and then it’s fine, right?”

Eddie’s wine glass was still on the coffee table, and he picked it up, swirling it anxiously. “How do you feel,” he asked.

“Oh, dude!” Richie laughed a little. “I _like_ you!”

Eddie tried to hide his sharp inhale by taking a hasty sip of wine. He put the glass back down with a clack. “Didn’t fuckin’ act like it.”

Richie let out a long breath, and for a moment Eddie got that weird feeling, like when you’re holding the same subway pole as a stranger and can’t tell whose hand is whose, like Richie had exhaled Eddie’s breath. “Like I said,” Richie muttered. “I don’t wanna play any stupid games, and get all, _neither did you._ But, neither did you, dude. So. Even-steven.”

Eddie looked away and rubbed a hand over his mouth, his face prickling with heat as he remembered the way he’d stormed out. “I was a dick, too,” he said, finally.

“Yeah, you were,” Richie said, but he was grinning, just a little.

Eddie stood up and went to the kitchen, where the counter was covered in drygoods. He could hear Richie following behind him.

“Preparing for the apocalypse?”

“Something like that.” Eddie opened the cupboard and took out his only other wine glass. “You want a drink?”

Richie paused, then said, “Yeah.”

Back in the living room, Eddie sat down on the floor instead of the couch. Richie joined him and wordlessly accepted his glass of wine.

Eddie leaned against the couch and turned to the muted movie, watching Ralphie’s dad shout furiously at the neighbors’ bloodhounds.

“You always watch movies this way?” Richie asked.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “The human voice makes me sick. That’s why you and I could never work.”

“Okay,” Richie said. “Don’t be _mean_ to me. Like, I can hear you’re joking, but I’ve laid myself on the line and now you’re just toying with me. Sicko.”

Surprising himself, Eddie laughed. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Richie stretched his legs out on the floor, crossing his ankles and clasping his hands in his lap, and waited.

Eddie pushed his hands through his hair, took a deep breath. Finally, he said, “When we started talking in that mall bathroom, I thought you were the most annoying person I’d ever met.”

“Dude, I said _don’t_ be mean!”

“Sorry—I’m sorry, it’s about to get really nice, I promise.”

Richie squinted at him. “Continue.”

“You were so annoying,” Eddie said. “But also. Even right then. I didn’t want you to quit talking to me. I wanted to talk and talk.” He set his wine glass on the coffee table. “It’s fuckin’ stupid how much I like you,” he said quietly. “I mean, even when we were just texting—I spent two weeks, like, grinning idiotically at my phone like a teenager. I, um. I was worried, I think, after we… I mean, I—I never do that kind of thing, but I didn’t know how often you did. And I thought I’d be okay with it, you know, just being a one night stand, but....” He trailed off, bringing one hand up to rub at his opposite arm.

Richie leaned towards him and put an arm carefully around his shoulders. “For the record,” he said, “I don’t do that kind of thing very often anymore. I’m kinda boring. And I mean, you were never just—just some guy to me. Guess there’s not really a non-creepy way to communicate that in the moment. Except to say that, like, I feel like I know you, yada yada, insert some analogy about my mom’s perfume, whatever the fuck I said.”

“What, that’s not your go-to pick-up line?”

“I guess it should be, shouldn’t it? One hundred percent success rate so far.”

“How does that compare to your method of getting my number?”

“Oh, Eddie,” Richie said seriously. “You think I’ve _ever_ had to be that creative before? Usually I’m just out with it! But it turns out Santaland is a desolately sexless environment. Boner-killers literally everywhere you turn. I really had to persevere.”

“Wow,” Eddie said, and laid his head, tentatively, on Richie’s shoulder. “Sounds like it was really hard for you.”

“Yeah, hard for _you!”_

“Oh my god.”

“I mean, once I got home. Not around the—I wasn’t trying to get arrested.”

“I got it.”

Richie fell silent for a moment. When Eddie picked up his head to look at him, it was to find him gazing at the snowstorm through the window, eyes crinkled, his free hand over his mouth.

“What are you thinking?” Eddie asked.

Richie blinked and lowered his hand, turning back to Eddie. His eyes were soft, and he was smiling like he couldn’t help it. Eddie watched Richie’s throat as he swallowed, feeling a little bit heady.

“I’m just thinking,” Richie said, “I’m really glad you like me.” 

Eddie felt himself flush immediately, and dropped his forehead back onto Richie’s shoulder to hide his face. Richie wrapped both arms around Eddie and squeezed gently, landing a brief kiss on the top of his head. Slowly, Eddie extracted his arms and folded them around Richie in turn.

They stayed like that for a moment, enveloping each other on the floor. Then Richie lifted his head from where it had been resting on Eddie’s and unwound his arms. 

“Shit,” he murmured, glancing out the window. “Don’t you have to get on the… road?” He looked down at Eddie dubiously.

“Oh,” Eddie said, “no, I’m not going. My aunt actually called earlier to officially uninvite me so I didn’t get into a wreck.”

“Smart woman. Safety first.”

“I don’t think you ever told me what you were doing for the holidays,” Eddie said, frowning. “You should—I mean, you’ll get snowed in here before too long.”

“Oh, well, I mean. I’m mostly Jewish.”

“Oh!”

“Just one more thing I didn’t mention when I got the call to be Kris Kringle. But yeah, Hanukkah ended weeks ago. And my parents are in the Bahamas right now anyway, so, uh. No plans.”

Eddie looked up at him, feeling a grin spreading across his face.

“I, um,” Richie said. “I wouldn’t mind getting snowed in with you, to be perfectly honest.”

“No?”

“I mean, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

“You sure like inviting yourself over, don’t you.”

“I’m not inviting myself over. I’m _fishing_ for an invite. Like a vampire.”

“Okay,” Eddie said. His smile felt out of control, making his whole face numb. “You’re invited.”

Richie laughed, a short puff of air out his nose. He sifted his fingers gently through Eddie’s hair, and the sensation sent a spark down Eddie’s spine.

“Good,” Richie was saying, “’cause I’ve already told Dancer and Prancer they can use your place to host their annual Christmas Eve drag show—oh.”

Eddie had swung his leg over and clambered into Richie’s lap before the words were out of his mouth. Richie looked up at him wide-eyed as Eddie held his face between his hands and said, very seriously, “No reindeer in the apartment, Richie. They’ll tear my Williams-Sonoma drapes with their fucking antlers.”

Richie blinked at him slowly. “That’s—that was—” he floundered, and then swallowed visibly. “I need to make out with you, like, now, please—”

Eddie lurched forward and kissed him hard enough to hurt, but he could feel Richie grinning against his mouth.

+

The storm lasted three days. In Eddie’s warm apartment, he and Richie ate easy food (alfalfa toast and eggs, spinach and black bean pasta, handfuls of walnuts) and drank wine until it ran out, at which point they drank coffee. Richie retired the elf costume quickly and wore Eddie’s clothes, tight on him but making it work. They went out once on the day after Christmas, when Eddie insisted on tramping through the snow to CVS to buy a little extra food and, for Richie, a pack of boxer briefs because as much as Eddie liked him, he wasn’t sure he liked him _that_ much. And then they stayed in.

Eddie could’ve stayed that way forever—just the two of them, watching movies on the floor, or fucking against the tiled wall of the shower, or lying in Eddie’s bed in comfortable silence and listening to the faint patter of snow against the windows. It was easier than he ever could have imagined to stay lazy and happy; to stay entwined on the couch while the hours slipped by unnoticed. But then the sky outside would grow dark, and they would get up, put music on low, and go to the window to turn on the Christmas lights.

**Author's Note:**

> we've just discovered that it’s not true love until you write reddie fan fiction together so congrats to us!!!!!
> 
> title borrowed from the beach boys' [little saint nick](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSynDh_K0EE). eddie's mortifying elf song is [we are santa's elves](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxHRA3k5-_U) from _rudolph the red-nosed reindeer_ , and the song playing in the bar scene is [the greatest christmas song of all time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV8x7H3DD8Y). 
> 
> this is dedicated to our lyft driver who was driving us to a party as we came up with this concept. thanks mister!
> 
> we are on tumblr as [newsom](https://newsom.tumblr.com) and [jonasblackwood](https://jonasblackwood.tumblr.com) respectively if you wanna come hang out


End file.
